Intergenerational support and retired people’s housing decision in China

Younger people being less supportive to their elderly has been interpreted as shifting away from the traditional intergenerational relationship in the literature of aging on East Asian countries, including China (Vos and Lee, 1993; Chee, 2000; Leung, 2004; Zeng and Wang, 2004). How-ever, this argument is largely based on the assumption that elderly people should be respected and cared for in the traditional societies. The author of this paper studies the changes in the patterns of intergenerational support with reference to housing in China and finds that the supportive relationship in elderly people’s housing decisions responds to the on-going social and economic changes. If we do not only focus on what the elderly have received, then family tie has actually been strengthened.